Alone at the End of the World Ch. 04

David didn't move an inch. He just kept putting his food into his mouth in small slow bites.

---

Janet was with Annette and Ned. The Doc had given her good pain medication. He didn't have a lot of it, but the old couple had left behind half a bottle of percocet. He was cautious with it, because he knew that some medications grew stronger with time, while others waned. This was one of the former, because in the brief window before Janet curled up on her side and closed her bruised eyes, she was stoned out of her mind.

Annette slept on the other side of her son, but hugged her little sister in her arms, sandwiching her precious angel between them. Ned was asleep, but the entire night he kept waking his mother with his struggling and crying.

He told his mother that he was dreaming about 'the mean ones, and daddy.'

Annette closed her eyes each time, trying to strengthen herself to the pangs of hurt every time she thought about her ex-husband. Thought about his slack empty eyes and his sagging bleeding mouth.

That had been BEFORE.

---

Jonah was exhausted. He took the medication from the Doc, and curled up in the attic bed. Vera and Davis slept in the room that Harold and Melvin once slept in. Melvin switched to a cot in the living room.

Jess was the one who came to Thad.

Both of the men suffered from a mutual dislike, but this was more important. Thad tucked Jonah under the blankets and followed the lean hunter down into the stairwell.

"Mark needs to go." Jess whispered. His eyes were bloodshot. His face haggard with stubble. "We need to get rid of him. Now is our only chance. It'll just look like he died from an infection or something."

Thad stared at him. "He saved our lives."

Jess looked up at him incredulously. "Are you kidding me? Look what he did to Jonah? What he did to Harold? The guy's a fucking lunatic. He's the only thing in the way. If I had the option between him and a crazy, I'd pick the crazy every time."

Suddenly Thad was grabbing his shoulders, slamming him into the wall. Thad's furious face was an inch from his own. Jess could smell the sweat coming off of the man, see the rage in his black eyes.

"You don't think I realize what he did? What a monster he is?" Jess was silent, stock-still, pinned against the wall and feeling the strength of the man's arms. Thad let him go and backed away, breathing deeply.

"I'm sorry."

Jess straightened his shirt, unwilling to show how shaken he had been.

"You're right. He has to die."

Jonah shifted and moaned above their heads.

Jess opened the attic door to leave, but before he did, he turned and faced Thad.

"When?"

---

It was silent in the RV. Mark was laid out on his back in the little bedroom. The Doc was asleep, snoring on a cot in the kitchen. He had devised a system that he thought was clever. He had tied a kite string to Mark's thumb and the string was attached to a bundle of round bells. A christmas ornament he had found in the basement. It would wake him up if Mark moved.

He had gotten the idea from an article that he had read about 'living morgues' in medieval Europe. They kept their corpses in the morgues with bells on their hands and feet. To prevent accidental live burials.

However, the Doc was a heavier sleeper then he thought, because the bells had been jingling subtly for a few minutes before Mark gnawed through the string himself.

Mark was wide awake. He gritted his teeth in agony. The pain was everywhere and huge, and when he tried to breathe it felt like someone was sitting on his chest. Tears were in his eyes, and his breaths were slow and painful, but his gritted teeth were twisted into a grin.

The universe bent backwards for him. He was alive.

---

The Doc didn't wake up for the gnawed bell string. And the Doc didn't wake up when the broken screen-door opened up either.

Soft footsteps on the carpet. The off-white carpet that still showed the bloodstains from the violent rape of a young man. Mark had taken pains to cover them with a rug, but the rug was gone. Maybe he was just lazy, or maybe his craziness was going so far that even his animal cunning was starting to slip.

The tall muscular man slipped through the dark RV, moonlight shadows filtered through mosquito-screens and dirty glass, illuminating no more then the line of a stairway, or the glitter of a doorknob. The moonlight briefly shone on his shaven head, on his muscular naked torso. On his eyes.

He climbed the small stairs to the bedroom above the driving compartment, and he opened the door.

The Doc snored, but someone else heard this. Mark looked up from where he breathed and plotted in pain. His eyes widened, but the man ran forward and cupped Mark's mouth in his broad callused palm.

Mark looked up at him, and feebly beat him around the head and face with his hands, but he was weak. The feeble struggles broke open his wounds and the snowy bandages on his chest and side bloomed bright red roses.

David leaned forward and the moonlight from the bedroom window threw his face into sharp relief. His nose was slightly crooked, with a faint white scar at the bridge. He had broken it when he was sixteen. Mark could see every scar, every feature, every flaw. The place where his eyebrow was broken by another small scar. The ancient pits on his cheeks, illuminated acne scars. His full lips, slightly parted but connected by a string of saliva that looked as delicate and beautiful as a strand of silk in the moonlight. His teeth gleamed between his lips, and his eyes were as dead and glittery as the glassy gaze of stuffed deer heads.

He stood there, keeping his muscular arm stiff and flexed over his brother's mouth. With the other, he held down Mark's feeble arms. Blood spread and leaked under the bandages. Mark's eyes were frantic and rolling. Froth from his mouth flecked and leaked through David's fingers.

"You're so stupid Mark." David whispered. His voice was hoarse and wavering. He was crying. His glassy reddened eyes glossed and spilled with tears.

"You're so fucking stupid."

"You doused our dog with gasoline and lit the match."

"You killed those animals."

"You started that fire in the school, everyone thought it was that autistic kid with the huge glasses, but I know it was you."

"You put that cut-up cat in the Johansson girl's yard."

"You raped our neighbor Tom."

"You broke that whore's arm."

"You killed that girl."

"You killed Jason, from boot camp"

"You fucked the queer."

Each sentence, each crime, punctuated by a vicious silent shake. Mark frothed like a rabid dog, spit slicking down his chin and his brother's hands. He fought so hard that the tiny blood vessels in his eyes were starting to burst. He tried to shake his head back and forth, to bite David's fingers. If another surviver were to see them, they would have looked at Mark, and seen nothing but a crazy.

"I never said anything Mark... you're my brother. I never said anything."

Tears streamed down David's face, but his words seethed with hatred.

"I don't care that you fucked the queer. As long as you kept it a secret. But he ran."

"You raped Ben."

An extra-hard shake. Mark's head knocked against the headboard and David froze, containing his rabid bleeding dying brother while he listened for the Doc. He heard nothing but distant snores.

He looked back down at Mark.

"You're sick. You're too sick to live Mark. You're too stupid."

David reached for a pillow and straddled his brother's chest, pinning Mark's arms and smothering the pillow over his face.

David cried.

Mark struggled.

Mark's body was a lithe writhing bleeding thing. The bandages were soaked. It reeked of sweat and metallic blood. It wasn't quiet, it was silent and desperate.

"I love you... I love you..." David whispered, his dead eyes staring through the tiny window, at the moon.

Mark's body became still, but David didn't move. He straddled Mark's body, pressing the pillow down over his face. After the minute hand David's watch moved from the three to the six... He stood up from his brother's corpse.

He wasn't over yet. He wiped Mark's face, covered him with a blanket. Closed his eyes.

"Abel slew Cain." David whispered, disjointedly. He looked down at Mark's body, and swiftly walked out of the trailer.

--- NOVEMBER ---

Gerald Everett, he who was known as the Doc, was tending to two patients that he had never expected to ever have to tend.

One was a large content gelding with a cut on his knee. The gelding was named Simba, for reasons no one could quite remember. He had been found in late august, scrawny, dragging a fifteen-foot rope with a rail spike at the end. The fierce debate of wether or not to butcher him had gone on for a day and a half, but all and all, no one regretted adding him to their family. He would help with plowing next spring, and he had already helped a lot with dragging sledges of firewood other loads. He was a big horse, and could hold two light riders to go out on search parties for goods.

The other was a big floppy-eared German Shepard puppy with a swollen worm-filled belly and a full cage of ribs and a coat swarming with fleas.

Janet walked into the barn, shivering under a coat and a blanket. She walked to Simba and petted his strong silky neck. "I know that Ned loves her to death, but there are so many packs of strays right now. It's gonna be a real problem."

The Doc sighed and gave the pup some of the heart-worm medicine they had found locked away in the barn. At least they had some rudimentary veterinarian equipment on the side, the advantage to taking over a barn. "I know, but who knows, she might be useful. Did he really come up with the name?

Janet smiled and skipped over to Gerald, kissing him right on the top of his head. "Nope. Atalanta was a Greek princess who was raised by a bear and nearly killed her future husband in a wrestling match. Only Annette could think of such a feminist name for a damn dog."

---

Annette and Jess were tangled together. Tangled in a lover's knot. The house was frozen, so they were tangled under several layers of blankets.

He was kissing her fingertips.

Annette told him the news with tentative hope.

"My period is a couple of weeks late."

Jess paused, and his hand slid down from where it had been casually cupping her breast. His hand rested on her flat stomach. His hand caressed, with a slow amazed warmth.

"It's going to be dangerous." She whispered, leaning into him, wanting to feel her man against her. She loved the way that thought sounded. Jess was her man. Hers, no one else's. "I'm afraid."

Jess got up onto his hands and knees, and moved so his head rested on her stomach. He kissed her there.

"I am, too." He whispered. "But I love you Annette. I will take care of you."

When he said it, it wasn't a claim of ownership. It wasn't a contract. It was love, pure love.

"I know you will." She whispered, smiling and running her fingers through his coarse sandy hair. Jess lowered his trail of kisses.

Annette let her head fall back, and wove her fingers in his hair, smiling, and letting her face burn with ecstasy as the cold sun burned through the thin blue curtains.

---

Ben and Franklin were having a snowball fight with Stacy in the backyard. Their laughter rang through the air. The snow was new, and for a brief magical time, it would be beautiful, and not an annoyance. Jenna and Bert were on the roof, sharing a thermos of hot cocoa that had been spiked liberally with the last of the Captain Morgan. They watched the kids, watched Ned struggle to make a snowman, the bottom snowball of which was nearly taller then he was.

---

Davis and Vera were in the process of bathing. It was a long and time consuming process, it had been ever since the river had gotten too cold to bathe in.

They heated up a big pot of water over the fireplace. The fireplace kept the living room, kitchen, and dining room moderately warm. The brick chimney also went through Bert and Jenna's bedroom, making that the warmest bedroom in the house (though not by much). Every other room was frozen, and kept warm with hot water bottles under sheets, body heat, and the liberal usage of one of Jonah's inventions.

Jonah had invented the soap, he had cobbled together a sledge that could harness Simba or a group of them pulling together. And his most recent contribution had been tripods he had made out of parts from the disassembled tractor and a blowtorch. Tripods with shallow pans that could be filled with coals from the fireplace.

Davis and Vera brought the pot of boiling water up to the attic, which they had reclaimed. Two of Jonah's tripods struggled to keep the drafty place warm. They stripped and took sponge baths with the rapidly cooling water. Water trickled in streams down the smooth mahogany curve of Vera's stomach. She looked down over her enlarged breasts, and was able to see the gentle curve of the baby's foot press outward to make an imprint on her stomach.

Davis put his hand there, to mark where the tiny point of contact had been.

---

David, Melvin, Thad, and Jonah were all in the same place. They were in the woods, bringing wood back to the farmhouse.

Wood was the most important priority. Jonah's huge vegetable garden had all been jarred and preserved. Jesse hunted every day, sometimes with Annette, sometimes not. The corn had been dried and preserved in plank-bins that Davis and Melvin had made. Rattraps surrounded the bins in a ring of bean-baited traps. Every day, they collected one or two.

Wood was what would keep them alive. Already, a huge pile shadowed the northern wall of the farmhouse, adding extra insulation. But a giant poplar had died standing up, and it was a full-time job chopping it into manageable lengths for the stove, not to mention hauling it back to camp.

Jonah was by the head of the tree, chopping off branches with the lightest ax, a three-pounder. He had massive piles of them that he tied into rough bales with twine. Thad and David hacked at the body of the tree. With a ten-pound ax and a two-handled saw. Melvin loaded the cut logs and bales of branches onto the sledge. When there wasn't any forthcoming, he helped to man the two-handed saw with David.

It was twenty degrees out, and the wind was picking up, but with their work, they all got hot. Melvin was bundled up still, but Jonah had stripped off his outermost coat and all of his hats. David was down to a single sweatshirt and some work gloves. Thad had nothing but a t-shirt and an open jacket and leather gloves.

The sledge was full, and David pronounced them done for the day.

"Three loads is good enough." He said curtly. "More tomorrow. We can take breaks when it's too cold to come out."

They all breathed tired sighs of relief, and went to the sledge to put on their harnesses and drag the wood home.

---

Melvin slept in the room with David. The Doc and Janet had taken over the room where Melvin and Harold used to sleep.

Thad and Jonah had taken the cellar.

Thad was upstairs, warming himself by the stove, so when he went downstairs, Jonah was resting under the covers, naked. Jonah turned his head and looked up at Thad innocently, the goosebump-roughened tops of his shoulders shivering from under the blankets.

Thad grinned. "We have an hour until dinner."

Jonah stood, regardless of the cold.

Jonah's naked body was long and scarred. He had never regained any hearing in his left ear, but some of his balance had returned. His silky black hair touched the tops of his shoulders, touched the tendons that stood out and made hollow of harsh shadow and skin in the dim emberlight of the cellar.

His body had toughened. He was a rope of muscle. Lean strength bulged in his arms and thighs, and his stomach was long and ridged. His navel was a black sliver that headed the tip of a sparse dark treasure trail that framed his hard cock.

The dim light sparkled on the droplet of precome at the tip of his slender cock.

"An hour is enough." Jonah whispered. He shivered. Delicious tremors shook his lean body. Rippled his back. The pearl of precome swelled, and then dribbled down the swollen pink head.

Thad let the jacket fall from his body. His sock feet whispered across the floor.

Jonah moved with him. The young man met his kiss fiercely, biting his lips and sucking on his tongue. The young man arched his shivering body into his.

They writhed. Out of clothes and under covers. They kissed and whimpered and caressed. Jonah snatched for the tub of clear greasy vaseline.

Thad's body was bowing him down. Jonah felt how hard Thad was, and panted. This wasn't the time for sweet timid touches and gentle mouths. He wanted it rough, raw.

Jonah splayed underneath him, on his hands and knees, spreading his arms palm-down before him and rubbing his cheek on the pillow, glaring up at Thad with a bright needful eye. He gave what could only be described as a snarl of pleasure as Thad pressed at his asshole with two greasy fingers.

Jonah's tiny pink hole opened like a flower, accepting the fingers, swallowing them whole. Jonah moaned and thrashed, moving his ass in seductive circles and looking up at Thad with a challenge in his eye.

Thad bared his teeth in a feral grin, and smeared vaseline on his cock before pushing at Jonah's entrance.

Jonah's face crumpled with pain, the brief silky pain of Thad's thick cock head pushing past his sphincter. After three long slow strokes, the pain eased, and his teeth-gritted hisses turned into long whines of pleasure. Thad's cock was grinding against his prostate, battering it. Sending waves of sparks of pleasure like fire.

Jonah straightened, lifting his torso and arms and face from the pillow. Thad put his arms on Jonah's flexing thighs to support his pounding hips. Jonah reached behind him and cupped the back of Thad's head in his hands, pulling himself level with the bigger man.

They were naked in the frozen cellar. But they kept themselves warm. Their breaths puffed out in blank bubbles of steam. Their moans filled the air. Their sweat poured off of them, and mingled.

They became one.

They fucked until they were exhausted, because for them, it wasn't about the end, it was about the act.

It was only when Jonah started to pant deeply and sag in Thad's arms that they hunted for orgasm. Thad moved faster, and he reached around to cup Jonah's dripping engorged cock in his hand.

Jonah leaned back when the orgasm built behind his hips like a pocket hurricane. He leaned back, turning his sweat-slick torso into a perfect curve, and forcing Thad on his back. His come spurted all over his stomach and chest while he let out an exhausted ecstatic cry.

Thad came just by watching the look on Jonah's face.

---

"That was amazing." Thad murmured, resting under the covers with a trembling exhausted boy in his arms. Jonah smiled.

Jonah got up and started to dry off, shivering in the damp cold of the cellar and huddling near one of his tripods.

Thad rested, staring up at the ceiling. "We haven't seen anyone in a while. No looters, no crazies. I bet that the crazies are only in mexico and the lower warmer states now."

Jonah pulled up some sweatpants. "I saw a crazy in September."

Thad lifted his head. "Really?"

Jonah nodded. "It was by the side of the road. It had been a woman. She was covered in warm clothes, which accounts for why she didn't die of exposure, I guess. She was starving. She couldn't even move."

Jonah popped back under the covers. "We got a few minutes." He murmured, huddling into Thad's chest.

He was quiet, and then he murmured. "Do you think that there's anywhere that wasn't touched by all of this? Maybe Japan? Or Australia? Hawaii? They could just be waiting for all of the stages of the disease to end."